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11
exclusively speculative Ohio Company scheme, plans in the early 1760s
imitated contemporary English projects by being promoted as an assistance
to trade, as well as continuing to offer possibilities to speculators.
This probably reflected the beginning of settlement in western Maryland
and Virginia and the shift to grain as the staple export of the mid-
Atlantic area. Also unlike the Ohio Company plans, these post-war
proposals included physical improvements to the river itself, not merely
roads bypassing obstacles.
One of the earliest post-war plans to use the Potomac route to
the western parts of Maryland and Virginia was promulgated by the Johnson
brothers of Frederick, Maryland. The major figure in this effort was
Thomas Johnson, who had gone to Frederick in 1760 from Anne Arundel
County to be admitted to the Frederick bar since his legal preceptor
practiced in that town. Two years after his admission to the bar,
Johnson was clected to the Maryland Assembly as a delegate from Anne
Arundel County. He served in that body for over ten years and later
became the first Governor of the State of Maryland and then a Supreme
Court Justice of the United States. Johnson also was one of the first
directors of the post-revolutionary Potomac Company. Despite his
constituency in Anne Arundel County, Johnson actively promoted the
improvement of the Potomac, particularly since his 1760 trip to Frederick
had convinced him of the area's future, to the extent that he bought
property there. Johnson eventually moved to Frederick and with his
brothers James, John, Baker and Roger operated a number of iron forges
and mills in that county. 17
17Delaplaine, Life of Thomas Johnson, pp. 12-36; Edward C.
Papenfuse, Director of Maryland Legislators, 1635-1789 (Annapolis:
Bicentennial Commission, 1974 , p. 42.
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